(1) Field of the Invention
This invention relates to cotton gins, and more particularly to cleaning seed cotton before the seeds are separated from the lint of the seed cotton. A cotton ginner has ordinary skill in this art.
(2) Description of the Related Art
When cotton is harvested by a stripper-type cotton harvester the seed cotton will contain a large amount of burrs, sticks, stems, trash, dirt, etc. About forty percent of the total weight of stripped seed cotton brought to the cotton gin will be this type of trash, and only sixty percent or less, of the material will be clean seed cotton consisting of lint and cotton seed.
In ginning cotton the preparation of seed cotton to be fed to the gin stands is well known.
Basically there are two principal types of preparation, one of which is the wiping the cotton across a screen or grid. Normally in the practice of this, the cotton is wiped across a screen or grid by spiked rollers. Examples of such a system is shown in STREUN U.S. Pat. No. 2,096,208.
The other type of preparation is where the locks of seed cotton are snagged upon saw teeth and then the trash, sticks, burrs, etc., are knocked off by bars adjacent the saw teeth.
ELDER U.S. Pat. No. 3,512,273, shows such a system where the cleaner is mounted upon a cotton stripper, which is to say that this initial step occurs before the harvested seed cotton is taken to the cotton gin. BLEDSOE U.S. Pat. No. 3,988,806 also shows such a system where the process takes place in the cotton gin.
It is noted that ELDER '273 uses two saw cylinders, with the trash from one of the saw cylinders falling upon the other saw cylinder along with some seed cotton. Also, by use of valves, the entire cleaning process can be by-passed and the harvested seed cotton fed directly to the basket as cleaned cotton.
Cleaners having saws are also common in use for cleaning the lint cotton, which is the cotton after having the seed removed. Examples of such cleaners include FOERSTER U.S. Pat. No. 4.223,423. GILLUM U.S. Pat. No. 5,173,994 shows such a system wherein the cotton is twice cleaned. I.e., after the lint is doffed from the first saw cylinder it is caught on the teeth of the second saw cylinder to again be cleaned. SHELBURNE U.S. Pat. No. 3,027,604 shows lint cleaners with various by-passes. BROOKS U.S. Re. No. 25,780 also shows a lint cleaner with by-passes.
MANGIALARDI, Jr. in published application T971,001 discloses reclaiming the lint from the trash of the lint cleaners and thereafter recycling the reclaimed lint for further processing.
In standard wiper-type cleaners it is generally accepted that each foot of width of the cleaner will handle one and one-half or two bales per hour. I.e., a cleaner with an eight foot width, which is to say that the spiked cylinders would be eight feet in length, would have a capacity of about 12 bales per hour for stripped cotton containing considerable burrs and sticks; or about 16 bales per hour when handling picked cotton which had far less burrs, sticks, and trash therein.